Doodling My Thoughts

A thin thread connecting sense to none,
separating 2 butt cheeks that belong to a Chinese red-district worker who’s doing her thing with a Moroccan dude. They’re synchronized: in….out….in….out…. exactly like the relationship between money and my wallet.

A decision that’s in the process of being made is connected to a thousand considerations that are amazingly intertwining like the patterns am doodling as am contemplating my

Private message to her on facebook.

2 contradictions that are tousling my mind are rotating infinitely around my neck and slowly chocking me to death.

As she surrendered herself to grief I surrendered all hope and whispered in her ear:

on the inside you’re very deep but on the outside you’re narrow and up tight…….. Just like my ass

The Incorporation of Occupation

As Israel is finishing off its atrocities in Gaza and working actively, internationally and locally, on cleaning the blood that stains its hands, the international community is also actively working on clearing its conscience - or rebuilding Gaza if you want. It’s almost a perfect economical model for Palestinian government officials and “people in charge”: a never ending cycle of Israeli aggression and destruction which generates a continuous flow of generous (Fact: since 2000, the EU alone has donated over 3.9 Billion Dollah to Palestine) financial and humanitarian aid paid for by yours truly, Mr. World. So, the real dilemma that the people in charge of “stuff” in Palestine are facing right now is how to tactically position themselves to become the sole recipient of the bling bling.

2 major corporations are competing for this lucrative RFP, Khamas and The Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA, on the one hand, enjoys an international reputation of being “moderate”, a “partner in peace”, “rational”. This automatically makes the PA a more qualified candidate for this bid. However the PA also enjoys a reputation of being corrupt and un-ethical. I personally don’t have a proof of that, but judging on the lavish life style that PA officials here in Ottawa enjoy, from driving fancy cars and living in houses that have swimming pools cooks and chauffeurs to recently buying a million-dollar estate near the Rideau canal to be used for an embassy representing a country that can’t be located on most world maps, unless they can prove to me that they discovered an oil well somewhere near Ramallah maybe, I think that what we have here is beyooooond corruption.

All sarcasm aside though, I don’t think that the PA is really capable of rebuilding Gaza and delivering the much needed financial support to the people in the strip. Ever since the cat fights have started between the 2 sisters, the PA has had diminishing control over Gaza while Khamas has been strengthening its grip on the strip and gaining more and more support from its people. And this makes Khamas, from a logistical stand point at least, more flexible, nimble and capable when it comes to rebuilding.

Of course the major concern that’s discussed when the Khamas proposal is put on the table, is whether Khamas will use this opportunity to equip itself again, with cutting edge state of the art tunnels, and rebuild its “red army” (even though Khamas really prefers the color green) and continue with its mission to conquer the “Free” world. And you know what? This is a legitimate concern not only for the international community (i.e. western powers) but also for the Palestinian people. The people of Gaza are the ones that took the major hit in this latest Israeli aggression and they should receive the bulk of the aid to rebuild roads, health, education, water, power, and sanitation infrastructure. The people of Gaza have supported Khamas throughout its resistance, they have stood by it because they know very well that the real problem is not with Khamas, that whether Khamas threw rockets at illegal settlements or not Israel was going to commit atrocities and ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians in Gaza are, and have always been, the real heroes, and 7amas has got to acknowledge this fact if they want to maintain the status of the “protectoooore”.

My Generation

You know what our problem is man... We’re a bunch of hypocrites and liars living off of the garbage of the wealthy and rich. The comical aspect of all of that is, while we own so much, we allowed ourselves to be very small and poor and it’s just stinky once you reach this low. We are wasting our present thinking of the past, and we will spend our future thinking of what we’re presently doing, when do we ever stop and realize that the clock is ticking man? We are a sad sad generation, no world war defines us and we have never been through a major depression. We got used to buying more than what we need and still want even more. Go damn it, we even got used to throwing stuff away with the tag still attached to them….Most of us growing up as kids have never heard the word “NO”. And those of us who have are still getting treated from post-traumatic anxieties. We are the migration generation man.... We come pre-equipped with 60-tablet containers of Extra Strength Tylenol ready to face all the nerve-racking deadlines and due dates that have become an essential part of our everyday life. We like loud electronic music, we like to rave, to “be on the pill”, to be on the edge. We get angry, irritated, annoyed, frustrated very fast. Our tolerance is very low, except when it comes to alcohol. We know no limits and we have no goals. The only thing that exceeds our intelligence is our stupidity. We were raised up on commercials. They were injected in the vein man. We are consumers; we consume and consume and consume. And we expect nature to clean up our mess. We belong to the filter-mask age-group, we were infected with SARS, Mad Cow, Bird Flu, AIDS; even our environment is starting to cough.
The 90’s were so cool though. I remember me and a bunch of friends used to argue a lot about whether 2Pac is dead or not. Coming to think about it, who gives a rat’s ass about whether the guy is dead or alive…Who cares about a dead rapper’s perspective anyway... What made those days fine I think was the good company and piece of mind that we had. We were living like birds with no strings attached. We loved music. We played hoops. We jammed on our guitars for hours. For days. You know what man, coming to think about it, I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. God damn it even if the tunnel gets too dark I am gonna buy me a flash light to help me carry through!

Respect your family, love your friends and be passionate about everything that you do. These are my goals in life.

Define yours.

Nov. 31 2007

From us and within us (منا و فينا)

We need to be displaced, relocated, evicted again. We need to be looted, pulled out from the roots and thrown away to a further place this time. And hopefully a safer one. In 1948 we were pushed out by strange gangs. They spoke a strange language and held a strange grudge. They had strange goals, and we were naive. Back then, the left side of the universe had ambitions, and we did too. But theirs destroyed ours. And they gave the gangs a base. A little massacre here, some ethnic cleansing there and we were on our way out. Some found a small patch of geography to settle in, but 67 wasn’t easy either, we were successful in winning a great loss in a war that lasted no more than 144 hours. And there we were again, more hungry, naked, and hopeless.

Following that, there were a lot of retreats, surrenders, negotiations and meaningless stances. We talked about borders when there was no land. We negotiated while being shackled to the ground.

New gangs have evolved now. Those ones, however, aren’t strange. We know them very well. They know us very well. They’re as aggressive as the strange ones, and the consequences are the same: blood shed and displacement.

We need to be displaced, relocated, evicted again. We need to be looted, pulled out from the roots and thrown away. But we know, very well, that this time no one wants to take us.

Ma'rouf 10/11

In big corporate organizations that follow very strictly and politely globalization rules, employees at low levels come and go pretty frequently.

Now don’t get fooled by neither the title nor the introduction of this piece, as it will not touch on any globalization-related issue and it’s not even remotely related to terrorism.

And incase you are hastening to finish your 1-percent-worth school homework, preparing to do some serious ass kissing for you university prof. to give you that 0.005 mark that would change your grade from a C to a C+, or even getting ready to drive your manager’s cute little 25-year-old son to the airport, I would like to tell you this from now: this article is only about a tea boy.

Ma’rouf his name is. He’s the usual dark Indian “sadeeg” that you could see working in any gulf (GCC) country for as low as 600 Riyals a month (approx. US $160). Now I don’t usually like to write anything that sounds like Greek tragedies, firstly because I am not Greek and secondly because I don’t like tragedies very much. But I find the story of Ma’rouf to be particularly intriguing because it contains in its details what could evolve to be the foundations of a new Arabic theatrical school: Arab tragedy.

Ma’rouf was fired last week for no apparent reason, some say that it’s because he’s not very good at making coffee, some say he comes 2 minutes late for work, but most people over here seem to believe that he was caught steeling sugar cubes and coffee beans by hiding them in his pocket before he left the scene everyday using the back door. I, on the other hand, decided to do my own investigation into the issue to find out what the real reason behind firing Ma’rouf was. I felt like I owe this thing to this “sadeeg”, after all he used to make me a very delicious hot cup of Turkish coffee every morning, always on time, always exquisite.

As I wanted the truth and nothing but the truth, I decided to start my mission by visiting the human resource division at our company. One fact about human resource divisions in GCC companies: the sole purpose of this division, it seems, is to make the life of every single employee in the company as miserable as hell. As if enduring living in a desert-like, 40 C°, city where you’re constantly treated like a 10^th degree citizen, who doesn’t enjoy even the simplest forms of civil rights, wasn’t enough.

After visiting the HR department 7 times and being “warmly” greeted every time by the secretary who would inform me that the person responsible for Ma’rouf’s case isn’t in the office, and that no one knows where he is. I was ironically able to find that person in the prayer room. I was informed then that Ma’rouf’s residency paper (kinda like a work-permit) had expired and because the person from the HR department responsible for renewing the residency didn’t pay attention to the matter on time, Ma’rouf had to pay the price and on 10/11---2005 he had to be thrown back to where he came from.

This morning a local newspaper read that the government intends to reduce the country’s foreign manpower (in all professions) to 10% by 2010.

Soon, I might be visiting the HR department again. Or the prayer room.

Later on this day, a friend of Ma’rouf’s informed me that Ma’rouf is enjoying his time at Juhu beach in Mombay, India, where he’s sipping Pina Coladas while getting a bronzage tan.
(wallah 3meltha ya ma3rouf)

A message to all locals: Ma’rouf’s position is currently vacant. The company is looking for qualified candidates.

Auto Biography

It was a sunny Wednesday, on November the 11th, in the year of our Lord 1981 when I slid out of the womb holding an authentic Alhambra flamenco guitar in one hand and a still-wet painting brush in the other. During the 9 months preceding this event I was teased by the fascinating voices and rhythms, that generally characterized the 80’s, which came to me from the outside world that by the time I managed to push my way out I had already created in my exotic small world a little studio where I recorded my first bulerías flamenco compás and a small gallery where I exhibited some of my surrealistic paintings.

It was only 9 years after that day that I came to grips with the haunting reality of my identity: a helpless Palestinian living in Diaspora. It was only then, when I watched those horrifying scenes on television of young Palestinian boys getting their bones and joints shattered by Israeli soldiers during the first Intifada, that I realized I am never going to be the same person again, and that this “outside world” that I thought was filled with music and colors was nothing more than how Picasso depicted it in his masterpiece, Le Guernica: a small space filled with cruelty and despair. Greatly affected by that and following my basic instinct which was given to me by the only God, I found myself holding a pen and a paper and sketching my first surrealistic solidarity drawing. On that paper I drew a hand waving the victory sign while holding a stone; the hand was in between an olive branch and the map of Palestine. This drawing, which was saved from the brutality of this world by my father, has come to show me years later that we, Palestinians, are born with the cause embedded in our veins, with a country already living in us, and with a fanatical will to survive.

After that, with all the tenderness and innocence that a 9 year old child could have I asked for one thing and only one thing: to return back to my small cozy world where I once lived peacefully recording musical pieces and painting colorful paintings. But despite my continuous childish nagging coupled with my naïve threats of revealing the reality of this world to the people of this world by publicizing my work of art, my appeals to return were constantly rejected on the pretext that firstly I was too big to go back now, and that secondly I was surely going to pose a “demographic problem” if I am ever granted the right to return.

Throughout the time my instincts have changed, new ones have evolved and some got forgotten. I gradually adapted to the rituals of this world that’s characterized with lust for material and extremely fast technological advances, that by the time the year “Y2K” was approaching and all the horrifying stories about the crash of technology that will follow it were surfacing, and terrified by what could happen to me after that tragedy takes place, I decided that as soon as I survive this disaster I will immigrate somewhere else. It was the summer of 2000 when I set sail to discover newer horizons. My destination was Canada. In this very cold place I was introduced to a new language, a new institute of thinking, new expressions, new definitions. I got to know about civil rights, human rights, different kinds of freedoms (freedom of expression, freedom of worshiping, etc). However, I still couldn’t find answers to my basic questions, and I couldn’t find ways to practice those rights and freedoms to fulfill my dream of returning.

So, here I am now, more than two decades have passed since I came forth into this world and I still bear the same dream and a solid will to achieve it…

Yesterday I took a vow. I vowed that until the last drop in my last paint tube vanishes, that until the last string on my Andalusian guitar breaks, I will bear the same will..I will stand still 1……

Ali Abotteen.
Dec. 29 2004.


1 Please note that this wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. It was supposed to be a serious biography that’s full of dates and events and adventures and accomplishments. However, as I was writing it I discovered how naïve I was to try to write my biography when I am only 23…I simply still didn’t achieve even a small fraction of what I would like to brag to people about when I write my biography, so I’ll keep the real one for later on…stay tuned, it will only be in 20-30 years from now..